Lab Wolf
by The6thAnon
Summary: Rose and The Doctor find themselves in the Aperture Science Testing Facility. GLaDOS inaugurates them as test subjects, but this is no normal experiment. Something created the hole in the Portalverse's timeline, and they're going to find out what did. [Void Ship Saga] Storyworld Series, Episode 1
1. A New Test Subject

_A/N: Dedicated to my brother for his 18__th__ birthday. Happy adulthood!_

"Well, well." The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. "_This _is interesting." He held the door open and let Rose out.

"Where are we? Some kind of hospital?" She looked around the room with wide eyes, her hands running against the panels on the walls. She knocked. "It sounds hollow. What do you think this is?" The Doctor walked around the room slowly, bending to look at the spotless white floor and squinting at the cameras in the corners of the ceiling. He stopped. Then he took his hand and waved it vigorously above his head. It was hard to tell, but the red eye of the camera moved slightly.

"Well, wherever we are, we're being watched. Come on!" He nodded to Rose and she fell in step beside him.

"No ideas at all?"

"Oh, I've got plenty of ideas. It looks to me like some humans are doing some things they ought not to be doing! They're ahead of their time."

"Is that good?" The Doctor took out his Sonic Screwdriver and pressed to a cracked panel on the wall.

"No, not in the least. Especially not for them. Look at this place." Rose took her eyes off the motions of the screwdriver and looked around the chamber. While the place they landed looked spotless, the floor on which she stood now was dirty. Vines crawled up the walls, and Rose followed them to a hole in the wall. She took a step forward when she heard faint chirps.

"Birds!" Rose pointed to a gap in the ceiling tiles. A family of small birds flew around a nest. "There's life here. It can't be all bad." The Doctor stowed his tool and peered to the end of the room, balancing on his toes.

"That may be so. We've got a lot to find out!" He led the way down the middle of a huge room.

"Are you telling me you haven't been here?" Rose turned to him in her walk, glee spreading across her face. "For once, I know as much as you do!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he replied, a cheeky smile lighting up his face. "My history's better than yours."

"Then how come you haven't heard of this place?" Rose wasn't going to give this one up.

"Could be several reasons." He stopped abruptly in front of a door. "Could be undercover, recently altered in time, too boring for me to notice…"

"But everything is interesting. I mean, I've thought so." Rose gave him a sheepish smile. "You don't really think time travel is boring, do you? Even though you've done it for so long."

"Nope! Just ruffling your feathers a bit. Acting a little like you. Besides, it's none of those things. We're in another timeline." He rubbed his hands together and tapped the screwdriver against the side of the door. It beeped, and the door unlocked. "Time to go!" Rose shook her head and followed him through the door. He was always like this, giving half an answer and leaving the rest to ferment in her mind. But she'd let it slip this time.

An unsolved test chamber remained behind them. The camera on the wall shook itself out of its stupor and focused on the strange, unlabeled test subject and his companion.


	2. Report For Testing

"Now, we've got to be careful," The Doctor briefed Rose with a frown on his face. "There's no telling what kind of influence this place is hiding under its panels."

"What d'you mean?" Rose brushed a curl of her blond hair out of her eyes.

"This timeline is supposed to be completely separate, wrapped in a bubble entirely different from our own. No matter how much our lines twist and turn—" he punctuated this point with some violent pantomiming of knot-tying. Rose smiled behind her hand. "—there shouldn't be any influence."

"Well." Rose took a step back and surveyed the hall once more. "_We're _here."

"But Rose, we can't forget the ones who already made the gap."

"Greetings, test subjects." The intercom on the wall crackled to life.

"Who's there?" The Doctor pointed his arm at the source of the sound.

"Just the owner of this facility. Play nice, or I'll turn on the neurotoxin."

"Neurotoxin?" Rose asked the Doctor. "Any of your old enemies use neurotoxin?"

"No! None that I can think of," The Doctor replied, spinning in an attempt to examine all the walls at once. "Well, some of 'em, yeah, but none of them have such an unwieldy voice."

"Making _fun_ of my voice? Is that the custom wherever you come from?" The AI asked in a sarcastic drawl. The Doctor slowly lowered his screwdriver and raised his eyebrows at Rose.

"AI, huh? Fantastic! Listen, who invented you?"

"How presumptuous. Humans, always assuming they're the great minds behind everything."

"But do you deny it?" The Doctor grinned, flicking his eyes between Rose and the barely visible intercom on the wall.

"I _was _invented. By some who claimed themselves to be on the cutting edge of human invention. What a _sharp _edge it turned out to be."

"Ah! I take it they're dead?" The AI chuckled.

"You're smarter than most. You'd make a most interesting test subject…doctor."

"Hey, she knows my name!" He turned to Rose and shrugged. "At least she's polite."

"I don't know about you, but I'm a little worried about this testing business," Rose said.

"Worried? Aw, really? You sure you're OK?"

"Fine, yeah…" Rose raised her hands to the sides of her head. "Can't really think, though." With that, the girl collapsed. A robotic arm came out of the panel beside her and pulled her into a separate chamber. The change in The Doctor was immediate. He hunched, his eyes darkened. His fists pushed the breath out of the air he crushed and he took purposeful, hard steps across the floor. He sped to her side but barely missed her fingers, and the panel closed behind her. A separate arm crept out of the wall behind him and clenched him around the waist.

"I bet you think you're very _clever_." He spat out the last word, straining against the metal. "You don't know who you're dealing with, machine."

"Machine? Well, well, let's not get offended," GLaDOS responded softly, as if chastising a child. She closed the fingers of the arm slightly. "You'll know my name soon enough, doctor."

"That's _The _Doctor to you," he retaliated, pushing against his restraints. "And you'll never forget mine."

"Touchy, touchy," the AI spoke to herself. "You just need a little neurotoxin to make compliance your favorite word." She spoke softly, seductively. The Doctor got the sense she was running her fingers over the buttons that would release chemicals into his lungs.

"Try me." The Doctor had stopped moving. He turned as much as he could within his silver prison and spoke directly to the intercom. "I'm ready."

* * *

Rose stirred on the cold, clinical floor. Her head hurt, and she pushed a hand across her bangs. Her fingers came back stained with ink, and she sat up abruptly, wincing once she was off her back. She was in a small room. A dusty, gray bed sat in the corner of the room. There were all the typical trappings of a bedroom, but Rose felt that if she opened the closet door there would be nothing inside, and even from a distance, she could tell the window was painted on. Everything was faded; the only spot of color in the room was an orange jumpsuit. A pair of odd-looking shoes lay beside it.

"What a perfect example of human negligence," GLaDOS said as if explaining Rose to a group of disinterested school children at a museum. "Only took you three days."

Three days! Rose stood up and winced as a sharp pain shot up her spine. She tried to take in all the details of the room, but her mind felt fuzzy. Information entered her eyes and left without leaving a mark. She glanced from the jumpsuit to the bed to the walls but couldn't focus on any of them. "Three _long_ days. I've had so much time _all to myself_." Rose stopped. To herself. That was something she could understand.

"Then…what've you done with The Doctor?" The words didn't come easily. The AI chuckled gently in response.

"Your friend? He made a lovely test subject before he made a mistake. I'm sure you can guess what we do with mistakes."

_Don't believe her!_ Rose barely had the time to panic over the implications of the AI's words before The Doctor's voice crowded out all the murkiness in her head. She stumbled a bit.

"W-What did you say?"

"Oh, the usual. Disobedience—and I'm sure you _know _how very…difficult he was. _Was_." Rose got the distinct sensation the AI would be examining her nails had she been sitting in front of her, and she smiled a crooked, unused smile.

_Good! Get yourself back, Rose! _

"What's that look supposed to mean?" The AI sighed. "You humans and your odd tendencies. Just put on that jumpsuit and walk through the door."

_Do as she says, Rose_, The Doctor's voice said. _I've gotten some information for you_.

Rose slid into the jumpsuit. _Can you…hear me if I think?_

_Yes. I'm using the power from the plant's core. See, she used some kind of gas to alter your brain, but there are remnants of the chemicals I can track in you. Warning, it's likely to cut out once you start testing. Because—_

"You're doing so well. I think I'll give you a gift!" The AI spoke in a false, cheery voice. "This piece of machinery will do just as much good to you as it did to him." A panel in the ceiling opened and the Sonic Screwdriver fell onto the bed. "What a useless little thing. But you humans are sentimental, aren't you?"

_Useless? _The Doctor's voice bristled in Rose's head. _Now _that's _offensive! That's not just any screwdriver, you pompous little…think you know everything…_ He muttered to himself. Rose laughed and took a stumbling step in her new boots. The Screwdriver sat in a deep pocket in the jumpsuit. The AI abstained from making a comment for once and simply opened the door.


	3. Metal-Tron

"You have completed the test. Please continue down the corridor to the next chamber. If you have any desire to stop, remember: science rhymes with compliance, and I am ordering you to test." Rose caught her breath and leaned against the wall. She would've liked to think that travelling with The Doctor had limbered her up a bit, but she wasn't sure she would even feel her hands.

Rose balanced the Portal gun on her arm and flexed her fingers.

"Taking a break?" The AI failed to shock her test subject.

"It's called breathing," she called back, used to the heaviness of her tongue in her mouth by now. The Doctor's voice chuckled in her head.

_Can you still hear me?_

_Sometimes_, she thought back, closing her eyes. _Sometimes you tune out and I just get static. _She could feel him grimace. _Hey, are you doing that too?_

_Doing what?_

The feeling left as quickly as it came, and Rose tried to relax her muscles. For a moment, she could've sworn she held The Doctor's tension in her body.

_Nothing._ She hoisted the gun back to the sore spot on her shoulder, but the AI interrupted her before she could take as step.

"It's obvious you're going to be useless for a while. Tell you what," she added with a drawl so dry it could suck the moisture from a rainforest. "We'll make a trade. I'll give you a few minutes for a break, and you'll give me a few years from your life. For science." Rose rolled her eyes.

"Whatever you say, Metal-Tron."

"What was that?" Rose wasn't sure how to answer. The name popped into her head, and having little left of her—already miniscule—filter, she said it. But now she smiled. GLaDOS was giving her a break; that meant she wouldn't be watching, right?

Rose didn't waste any time pondering the specifics of her conversation, but her mental companion turned them over in a whisper.

_Metal-Tron, Metal-Tron…_when_ have I heard that _name_?_

Rose responded by pulling out the Sonic Screwdriver and trying it on the nearest panel.

_I'm telling you, Rose, I've heard—_

The Doctor's voice cut out for the third time since she started testing. Rose ignored the solidness of the silence that settled in the room and focused on trying each individual panel. These testing chambers seemed to breathe when she looked at them too long, the walls expanding and contracting like a sedated heart. And they were so empty!

The panel opened with a click and Rose looked inside the crack. She dropped the Portal gun and pushed the wall, bracing herself against the black straps of her long-fall boots. The tile turned and Rose fell inside the room, landing on the cold floor. She shoved a leg back into the crack to stop it from closing, but the grinding of the door never came. She got up slowly and looked carefully at the room before her. Beside a musty bed and an unused portal gun laid a girl.

* * *

The Doctor stretched his arms and leaned back from the computer screen—but not too far back. His forehead was connected to a wire. Impulses shot from a makeshift transmitter on the table, and he sighed in busy contentment before springing from his chair and walking to the tubes of gasses to check for abnormalities.

"Nothing."

He listened to the quiet stream of Rose's thoughts—the test chamber had stumped her. He would've teased her about it had it not been such a dangerous situation.

"Alright, alright, time to move!" He took one last look at the documents on the desktop. There were a few lists of test subjects, an excel spreadsheet, some old records of regulations and loopholes…not much worth examining, certainly not with Rose's life on the line. He pulled the wires from his head with a grimace and spun around the room. He remembered a bit about getting here: a few scattered memories of a trapdoor, some crawling, the sound of rats' feet. But connecting himself to the transmitter had taken more than a little of his mental capacity, and he couldn't remember how to get out of the place.

"Well, I'm brilliant," he said aloud. "And this room should be no match for The Doctor." True to his word, it only took him a few minutes of parading along the edges to find a loose panel. Without his Sonic Screwdriver, The Doctor had no choice but to push it by force.

It turned easily. Too easily. The Doctor figured someone must've been here before and was so caught up in the realization he failed to stop the natural progression of his push—and found himself sprawled across the floor. He got up quickly, looking around and dusting himself off even though no one was there to see his fall. Once he got himself cleaned up, The Doctor stared straight ahead. He squinted. The walls in the distance weren't uniform like the rest of them. If he strained his eyes, he could see a few splotches of color on the floor just in front of what looked to be a mural.

"Rose," he whispered, and the name reverberated through his mind and around the room. "Rose!" He ran back to the transmitter and connected himself.

Then he squeezed his eyes shut and gave her the loudest thought he could.

* * *

Rose took a step forward and looked at the girl before her. She wore an orange jumpsuit like her own. She had a blacked-out ID number pinned to her chest. Rose took a few hesitant steps. She didn't look sick—her skin, though unused to sunlight, was clean enough, and her eyes were shut peacefully. Rose got closer to the girl and listened for a breath, a heartbeat. She stretched out her arm. The air around her hand started to shudder with static, but she didn't notice. The malformed air fluttered around her hand like dust, twitching and changing colors.

She was inches away from touching the girl. Rose could barely think; she couldn't even remember why she wanted to wake this girl in the first place, but her muddled head had no room for doubt. She stretched her hand closer and felt herself fading, barely conscious of her own existence. Who was she, really? A test subject? Someone bred as flesh for the preservation of science? She couldn't even remember her own name, though she could remember one murky syllable, settled at the back of her head like paper tied to a rock. She inched her hand closer, then stopped. She was important, wasn't she? She mattered to someone! The air around her hand squirmed in disagreement.

_No_. She shook her head. She was travelling with someone. Her name was—

_ROSE!_

She stopped. The static around her hand held its breath. The Doctor screamed in her head to run, get back, stay away from the unmarked test subject! But she couldn't hear him.

She closed the gap and touched the only girl with enough tenacity to match her own.


	4. The Replacement

As soon as her hand brushed against Chell's skin, Rose collapsed. She fell to the floor beside Chell, the Sonic Screwdriver slipping from between her fingers. Chell got up. She didn't rub her fingers against her eyes or stretch. Chell knew how to survive this place. She grabbed the girl's testing equipment and prepared to go back into GLaDOS's robotic eye. But something made her stop. It wasn't fear; Chell knew there was no time for fear within Aperture's laboratories. She knew to waste no time trying to figure out how she wound up back inside the facilities—it was the girl who made her pause.

Chell walked back to Rose and picked her up. She settled her on the same space on which she had once slept and smoothed her hair down. The girl was still. If she hadn't been breathing just a few seconds ago, Chell wouldn't even be sure she was alive.

"She's safe." The Doctor stood in the yawning shadow of the tile, his overcoat covered in patches of dust and grime. "But as long as you are awake, she must stay asleep." Chell looked at him. The Doctor extended his hand. "I'm The Doctor. I keep people safe. Do you want me to come with you?"

Chell didn't take the hand, but she nodded in his direction. The Doctor understood. "You've done this before, haven't you?" Chell looked at him, and he saw memories etched into her face. Everything about her spelled experience—she knew how to stand, to hold the gun, to keep herself almost perfectly still. "I'll watch Rose," he said finally, gesturing to the floor. "That's her name. And yours is?"

But Chell was already gone. The Doctor shook his head and pulled a few pieces of wire out of his pocket. He reset his transmitter and listened to Rose's thoughts.

_It was blurry, but he could see Rose was still dreaming of the test chambers. She watched the girl maneuver through the sterile rooms with practiced efficiency. _Chell_, she muttered in her dream. The girl looked up from a red testing button, but she didn't face any of the cameras_. 

"Chell," he said aloud. "How do you know her name, Rose?" He refocused on Rose's vision.

_Chell lifted her portal gun as she entered GLaDOS's chamber. She tightened her grip around the gun. She could hear whirrs from behind the chassis and narrowed her eyes at the first enemy to come into her vision. _Metal-Tron_, Chell and Rose thought together. _

The Doctor leapt to his feet once he saw the first Dalek. The force of his jump pulled the wire from Rose's forehead, and he scrambled to put it back on. He could see Chell facing the Daleks, making no move to run. He had to warn her.

He didn't know if this would work, but he felt a connection with Rose and knew she and Chell shared each other. There was something in her mind that ran deeper than just a first meeting. He prepared to yell again.

_"Chell, run! These are nothing like you've seen." _Chell stared at the Daleks, unmoving. They slid from behind GLaDOS and faced her, lining up in rows. _"Chell, listen to me! They will kill you! They hold nothing but hate. _Please _run!"_ The Daleks crept closer. Their cameras focused. Chell's eyes flicked around the room, searching for portal-conductive surfaces. _"Chell, they yell 'exterminate!'" _At that word, all the Daleks in the room faced her, and Chell ran. She broke from her trance and sprinted out of the room. If they had anything to save them now, they had Chell's speed.

The Doctor swallowed. He had gotten the girl away, but at what cost? They could hear him. He wasn't safe. He calculated that the girl would be back in a few minutes and he would need to have a plan.

He looked back at Rose and pushed the Sonic Screwdriver back into her hand. "You'll need this, test subject." He swallowed. "Remember: before you are hers, before you are anyone else's—you are mine."


	5. Lab Wolf

Chell ran into the room, and The Doctor closed the panel behind her. "Alright then! Plan, plan, need a plan." He rubbed his hands together. "Chell, you got anything?" She paced around the room, pausing to point her portal gun at different cracks in the wall. "No? That's fine, we make things up as we go along around here." _Two minutes 'till they arrive_, he thought to himself. "Rose, do you have-" He stopped himself. Rose wasn't here. She slept in limbo now, her mind disconnected from this world, her body stuck within it.

* * *

_Rose dreamt of another time. _

_4 Daleks fleeing to a ship as destruction crushed the space around them…blackness, no time, no presence…a new way to think, to kill…_

_"We need what the enemy has."_

_"How far will we go?" came the reply._

_"As far as we need."_

* * *

Rose's hands twitched. Chell and The Doctor stopped to watch her. With one swift jump, Chell landed by her side. She brushed her hand against the sleeping girl's face.

"Hey, watch it! You're breaking the laws of time. Only I can do that." Sure enough, Chell's hand started to shimmer, but she didn't seem fazed by it. "That's serious!" She ran her fingers against Rose's cheek. "Chell, I can't-" His voice caught. "I can't save both of you, and you know who I'd pick." He made an effort to meet Chell's eyes. Chell made an effort to ignore him. "I'm sorry." Chell stood up with Rose's hand in her own. The Sonic Screwdriver fell from her grasp. "Now _that's _where I draw the line." He stood up. "Without a link to me, test subject, my companion will disappear." Chell took no notice of him. The Doctor clenched his fists as he saw the light spread from Rose's face to the tips of her fingers. "She'll vanish! How can she help me if she's gone? The Daleks-" They heard the army sending commands to each other just outside their test chamber.  
The Doctor faced Chell, determination turning him fierce. Chell rolled her eyes, and that offered him some comfort. The people who got annoyed with him usually didn't walk around with betrayal in their hearts. A Dalek glided into the room, and he made a decision—quick and possibly deadly, just like the majority of his decisions. "Stay behind me," The Doctor muttered, but the pair did no such thing. They opened their mouths, and Rose's voice spoke forth.

"We are Lab Wolf," Rose said. Chell didn't speak, but their lips moved in unison.  
"We looked into each other and saw nothing but the same." They advanced, hand in hand. The glimmer swallowed the place they touched, and The Doctor realized it wasn't a rip that surrounded them now, but particles. "Huon particles. But that's impossible." He looked at the Dalek army and jabbed a finger behind them. "How're you gonna deal with that, eh?" He raised an eyebrow. He was sure Rose would've laughed had she not been controlled by a greater power.

"Exterminate!" the leader yelled, but Lab Wolf held out their palms and refracted the beams. "The Time War ends," they chanted. "Never to repeat itself. We hold time and we will thwart destruction."

"Again," Rose added. Chell's mouth didn't follow her this time. Rose stared at her Doctor and repeated herself, and he felt a shiver work its way into his hearts.

"Again."


	6. A Shell

In moments, Lab Wolf had disintegrated the army of Daleks. Through the monitor, they could see that four oddly colored Daleks had made their way into a dark black orb. The Doctor squinted at them. He knew they were important, but he couldn't remember their names.

Chell dropped to the floor and Rose jolted out of her vision.

"Did we do it?" She asked, excitement and residual energy making her stand on her toes. The Doctor grinned at her.

"Oh yes you did, Rose. You and—" he gestured to the floor. "That girl there." A look of horror took over Rose's smile and she knelt down.

"Doctor…she isn't breathing." The Doctor didn't bother getting out any instruments. He squatted beside the test subject and folded her arms above her heart. They stood together in a moment of mourning, and The Doctor took her hand.

"We still have work to do," he said, and he gently led her away from Chell.

They found GLaDOS in a matter of minutes, The Doctor opening each door with his screwdriver, Rose sending the turrets into time out.

"Take that, metal…thing."

"Best not have too much fun over there, Rose."

"And why not?"

"We've got company." Rose turned away from the frightened turret and stared into GLaDOS's yellow eye.

"Oh."

"Yes, _oh_." The AI replied. "The least you could treat those turrets with respect. Now what have you done with my test subject?"

"She's, um…not here," Rose replied awkwardly.

"Right, not here," The Doctor finished, stowing his Sonic Screwdriver in his suit. "What can you tell us about the Daleks?"

"The Metal-Trons?" The name nagged at Rose like a hidden itch. "They appeared in a big black sphere."

"Big black sphere?" The Doctor walked closer, a saucy spring in his step. "And could you measure that big black sphere?" He paused slightly after each of his last three words. He grinned as the AI recoiled. "No? Not even you, scientist supreme?"

"Best not be enjoying this too much, Doctor," Rose muttered. "We have company." The outline of a Dalek rolled out from behind GLaDOS's chassis. Before it could say anything, Rose aimed the portal gun at the floor and ceiling and sent the Dalek—if it could really be called one—into a free fall. It weakly called to exterminate the intruders, but it didn't have the power to do anything more than wave its vision-piece around indignantly.

"It's just a shell!" The Doctor said with glee. "Well, just a blur now."

"You gonna tell me to stop?" Rose asked.

"Nah, leave it there." He turned back to GLaDOS. "So, you found a ship you couldn't measure, Daleks appeared, and Lab Wolf—" He fluttered his hands mockingly and Rose smacked him on the shoulder. "Lab Wolf here destroyed 'em all!"

"Oi, I rather like being Lab Wolf!"

"You're not the Lab, you're the Wolf. Grr."

"What?"

"Not important!" He said brightly. "Anyway, we're off. Leave that Dalek there for a few years, will you?"

"Find Chell for me and I'll let you go," GLaDOS commanded. She held onto her remaining power and wielded it as if it were neurotoxin.

"Oh, no one tells me when I get to go. Besides, Chell's dead." Before GLaDOS could express her outrage at the obvious lie, Chell's image appeared in the room, more glitch than human. She floated to Rose and hovered in front of her.

"Chell." She reached out to touch the girl hesitantly. Chell grabbed her hand and Rose gasped. She was solid, but just barely. Slowly, the test subject leaned forward until their faces were an inch apart. "What are you?" She asked quietly. Chell smiled. In this form, she was almost goddess-like, shinning with power instead of marred with the bruises of a glitch in time. The room was quiet; Rose forgot about The Doctor and the AI. "Chell—" Rose had a lot to ask the girl. Who she was, how she came here, why she mattered…but Chell put a finger to her lips and Rose halted mid-sentence. Before she could ask anything , the girl kissed her, much to everyone's surprise.

"That's a paradox!" The Doctor said, eyes widening. "Not that I'm complaining, really," he added, scratching the back of his neck.

"You disgust me," GLaDOS muttered, but having an uncanny interest in Chell, she kept her eyes fixed on the two girls during the kiss.

"You're both sick," Rose retaliated once Chell had pulled away. "Absolutely insensitive." She grinned abashedly at the girl. Chell mouthed a farewell, and then she lost the last of her humanity, surrendering to the particles. A bit of color filled the Dalek's falling outline, but no one noticed.

"That was Chell." GLaDOS spoke without emotion.

"Right you are! And now that you've seen her, we'll be off. Nice meeting you."

"Chell is…dead?" The Doctor nodded grimly. "Then I have no use for myself anymore." Rose watched GLaDOS shrink into herself. The chassis retreated until it sat in the corner of the room. The Doctor swallowed, understanding dawning on his face. He clamped a hand around Rose's wrist and pulled her out of the main chamber.

"Hey! We still don't know anything." She wrenched her arm free and stopped. "Why are we leaving so fast? Doctor, listen to me!" The Doctor closed his eyes as they heard a scream push itself through the intercom system. Rose covered her ears. It wasn't loud, but it was empty, anguished. The Doctor stared into the camera.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Rose struggled to her feet, tears leaking out of her eyes. The Doctor opened his arms for a hug and he wrapped her up securely. He cried, too, but silently. He swallowed the tears before they could fall from his face and stroked Rose's hair. "She needs a hero," he remarked sadly. "Rose, you are the only hero in his world now. Once she figures that out, she'll put you in Chell's place, and I can't let that happen."

"You're a hero." She said it as a fact—The Doctor was brilliant, after all. She pulled away and wiped her eyes. "How do you know she wouldn't take you?"

"Not in here I'm not." He jerked his head to the elevator that would lead them back to the TARDIS. "I'll explain once we're back." Rose followed him. She glanced over her shoulder and watched the test chamber disappear all the way up.


	7. It's Real

"She took all the particles for you," The Doctor explained once they were back in the TARDIS. Rose didn't answer. She stared at the door and didn't move. "Rose, she sacrificed herself for us."  
"I know that!" She spun around. "And it didn't even work, did it?" The Doctor didn't answer for moment. "The Daleks ran off. I can tell they're not done. They're never done."

"That just means we have more places to go." He spun on his heel. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? After the Daleks!" His smile faded as he watched his companion. "We can't spend our time mourning the dead, especially not when they're fiction." He leaned in front of her so they were eye level. "She's not real, Rose."

"She's real!"

"Oh, of course you'd say that."

"And of course you'd say that she's not! You felt the world with your own hands, you saw—" Her voice cracked and she pointed away from the two of them. "We could've died."

"Like always."

"Yes, like always! Are you gonna call that imaginary danger? How—"

"Because it hurts." He leaned against the wall of the TARDIS. "If we cried for all the lost souls in books and media we'd never do a thing." Rose glanced at him quizzically.

"Chell wasn't in a book." The Doctor stared at her agape for a moment.

"Oh, of course, I should start at the beginning."

"Yeah, yeah, just like you to leave the important things out."

"That was…" He tilted his head back and forth.

"Come on, not like I'll accuse you of being a liar or anything. I've seen a lot with you." _Quite an understatement_, she added to herself.

"We were in a Storyworld. Void worlds, some people call them. Every bit of fiction ever made has its own world, and the Daleks found one somehow."

"What do they want here?"

"Who knows?" He ran a hand over the TARDIS's core. "They're built for consumption by humans, for entertainment. But you never think about what would happen if they're real, hm?" He said, his voice low. "The human race—so imaginative, but so careless."

"So what about this world, then?"

"Nothing about it. It has no savior. Chell was supposed to be the hero," he explained, leaning closer to the interface. "But the place got corrupted, and then you showed up. It thought you were her!" He tapped a button with a flourish and checked on Rose out of the corner of his eye.

"It?"

"The world! That lab has a consciousness of its own, and I'm not talking about that scruffy little AI." Rose smiled for a second, imagining GLaDOS's retort. _They were so real_. She held out her hand as if recalling Chell's touch.

"And…you said there was a man?" She asked. She had to shake the memories somehow—there would be more worlds and more fiction to live through, and she couldn't be a mess. The Doctor nodded, recalling the shadow he saw scampering behind him.

"He was supposed to be the light. The guide. Not an enemy, but not a hero."

"Oh yeah? How d'you know?"

"It's how you humans work." He turned around, balancing his weight on the TARDIS with his palms. "You always want one person to save the day."

"Well, fine." Rose shook her head. "Then I can believe in him. If this is fiction. Why can't I? The man with the companion. That's what you are, aren't you?" The Doctor stopped fiddling with the controls on his ship. Rose smiled at him, her jacket and pink t-shirt showing under the jumpsuit slipping from her shoulders. He smiled back at her and made a motion with his head for her to come closer.

"Yes, Rose, you can," he whispered to her. "But I believe in _you_."

* * *

A/N: The saga continues in "What Time is it?" (a Doctor Who and Adventure Time crossover). Keep your eyes peeled for its release, and don't forget to check back in this fandom for "The Rat," a Storyworld Series spin-off.

Of course, you _can_ read each episode separately, but I recommend that you read in order. The overarching story will make much more sense that way.

Allons-y, time lords!


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